Sales

When I was working for a start-up telecommunications company leading a retail team, we didn’t have any reporting setup in order to see what was happening in the business. My boss gave the task of setting this up to me.

When she said to me: “We need reporting on ALL of this!” It brought up two very different emotions for me.

When you made the decision to open your business, did you stop and think about what you would do if there was a crisis in that business?

You should expect that when you own your own business, you are responsible and accountable when things go sideways. In fact, when you experience a crisis in your business, if you are not prepared, it can cause your business to falter and maybe even go into bankruptcy.

Almost every single business owner that I talk has the same question, “How do I move the needle in my business and increase sales?”

What I have discovered over the last 10 years of working with people is that one fundamental problem gets in the way of most business owners generating more sales in their business. The good news is, it’s really easy to fix with this one bright idea…

According to the White House Office of Consumer Affairs, it is 6-7 times more costly to attract a new customer than it is to retain an existing customer. Considering the fact that 80% of your company’s future revenue will come from 20% of your current customers (Gartner Group), customer retention is something you’ll want to be paying attention to when planning for 2016.

When it comes to planning out the year to come, we often focus on how we can drive new prospects into the marketing funnel. New leads, new customers, onboarding, etc. become the cornerstone of our strategy and sometimes, we forget to nurture our existing customers and build in strategies to retain them.

Many people have a block around making money as an entrepreneur so I’d like to share my own story about how I started out as an entrepreneur.

I was a 4-year-old when my parents split up. Mom worked in a lumberyard to take care of us – it was really hard work. I didn’t realize we were poor until I was around 12. It was at that age that I noticed that kids were dressing differently than I was. To save money, Mom bought my clothes at the local five and dime or discount department stores.

When you’re that age, what you’re wearing often defines how cool you are – or at least how cool you are perceived to be.